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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Things are winding down here and I am looking forward to a little time off. I may even work on a piecing project this weekend. Or quilt my sister's quilt, because being the quilt top making sister of a longarmer is like being the cobbler's child. Even Mom's quilts seem to take priority over hers. Good thing she loves me anyway, because I have had this top for more then a year!
Christmas day will be spent with my hubby's family. Which of course, means a good douse of twin spoiling. It is always fun to get to see the world through their adorable, five year old eyes. Do you think they would agree to stop getting older? But then again, ever year there are more things that we can do with them, so on second thought, maybe getting older is a good thing too.
While I am enjoying my time away from the Showroom, I am hoping to find the motivation to work on getting all the Quilt Path tutorials into a better all in one place form. My goal is to have a rough draft done before I go to Austin next month for Quilt Path Camp. I never truly get that far away from work. I love what I do and it just hard to stop sometimes.
I hope that you get to spend the rest of your holiday season, with those you love! And hopefully doing things you like to do too! 2014 has been a fun and wild ride here and 2015 is starting to look just as crazy! Wishing you more happiness, joy and fun that you can handle!

Friday, December 19, 2014

I am getting myself ready for the next Quilt Path Camp. There are still spaces in both of the Texas Quilt Path Camps.
Quilt Path Camp - Austin
January 13-16, 2015
Camp will be held at The Stitching Studio in Austin.
Quilt Path Camp - Dallas
January 20-23, 2015
Camp will be held at APQS Texas, which is inside Quilt Country in Lewisville, Tx.
If you are interested in attending either camp, please contact Angela!
919-576-9897

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Today we are going to do math. Hang in with me, I promise it is not going to hurt! I am going to show you how I break borders into blocks to place designs. I have done this for as long as I have quilted, way before I got my Quilt Path.

We are going to use the measurements of the quilt, which I am working on today. Normally when we measure quilts we do an edge measurement. This quilt is 44.5 inches X 68.5. It has two borders. I am going to set blocks into the outer border that is 4.25 inches wide, seam to outer edge. Because I am setting blocks, I will also need to know the length of the seam line that is joining the outer and inner border.

For our sample the seams are 36 inches on the width and 60 inches on the length. Here is where the math comes in.

The first thing we need to do is take into account the space the binding will cover. I like to end my designs a little bit inside where my customer are going to bind. For most quilters that is somewhere between 1/4 and 3/8 of an inch. So, I take 1/2 inch off the width of the border strip measurement.

4.25-.05=3.75

Now, I want to know how many blocks I can put in the length of the border so I will divide the seam length by 3.75

60/3.75=16

I really did not plan this, but in this cause is divides evenly. We also need to divide the width seam by 3.75.

36/3.75=9.6

Coming up with strange number like that is going to be more normal then getting a whole number. We get to decide how we are going to quilt .6 of a block. Can't you just see that squished block jumping off the border at you? Blech! What I am really going to do is simple rounding. In our sample... under .5 do 9 blocks, over .5 do 10 blocks.

For our 3.75 inch blocks we are looking at needing to reduce each of the block with by .15 inches. Seriously, just fudge them a little smaller. I don't sit here with a measuring tape making each block the exact same size at that small of a difference. I get them close, but I don't stress over it. If was .25 per block, or larger, I would get out a ruler. The more you do it the more you will trust your ability to fudge.